Redstate

I believe that Milbank was likely referring to the remarks made by Edwin Viera during the event:

...Not to be outdone, lawyer-author Edwin Vieira told the gathering that Kennedy should be impeached because his philosophy, evidenced in his opinion striking down an anti-sodomy statute, "upholds Marxist, Leninist, satanic principles drawn from foreign law."

Ominously, Vieira continued by saying his "bottom line" for dealing with the Supreme Court comes from Joseph Stalin. "He had a slogan, and it worked very well for him, whenever he ran into difficulty: 'no man, no problem,' " Vieira said.

The full Stalin quote, for those who don't recognize it, is "Death solves all problems: no man, no problem." Presumably, Vieira had in mind something less extreme than Stalin did and was not actually advocating violence. But then, these are scary times for the judiciary. An anti-judge furor may help confirm President Bush's judicial nominees, but it also has the potential to turn ugly.

...

Vieira, a constitutional lawyer who wrote "How to Dethrone the Imperial Judiciary," escalated the charges, saying a Politburo of "five people on the Supreme Court" has a "revolutionary agenda" rooted in foreign law and situational ethics. Vieira, his eyeglasses strapped to his head with black elastic, decried the "primordial illogic" of the courts.

Invoking Stalin, Vieira delivered the "no man, no problem" line twice for emphasis. "This is not a structural problem we have; this is a problem of personnel," he said. "We are in this mess because we have the wrong people as judges."...

(Emphasis mine)

Is Milbank suggesting that this guy intends to do harm to Justice Kennedy? Nope, even says so.  Is Milbank suggesting that there are nutcases who would be willing to take these words literally?  That's the way I read it, and you can bet that the U.S. Marshals assigned to Kennedy are reading it the same way.

Have never read David Neiwert.

He is suggesting that religious conservatives, inspired by the likes of Phyllis Schlafly and Michael Farris of the Home School Legal Defense Association, are dangerous people in the mode of headliner Eric Rudolph, the freak who bombed the 1996 Atlanta Olympics and a Birmingham abortion clinic.

I don't see the author suggesting that religious conservatives in general are dangerous, which you seem to be implying.  I see him wrongly linking recent violence toward judges to the campaign against the judiciary and rightly noting that recent rhetoric about violence toward judges is cause for concern.  Although he makes the same mistake Cornyn made implying that recent violence is related to perceived "judicial activism", he could just as easily have cited the death threats that have been made against Judge Greer (not that Greer engaged in judicial activism, but objective reality needn't hinder a homicidal nutjob who thinks he's on a mission from God).

And if I'm wrong and you instead mean to say that NO religious conservatives become violent, well, you still have the problem of Eric Rudolph, who targeted abortion providers and homosexuals in two of his terrorist attacks.  That he doesn't represent religious conservatives as a whole is probably no comfort to his victims.  Neither should judges be particularly comforted if only a handful of extremists out there might be willing to take the more violent rhetoric of the religious right's Culture Wars literally.

"Not to be outdone, lawyer-author Edwin Vieira told the gathering that Kennedy should be impeached because his philosophy, evidenced in his opinion striking down an anti-sodomy statute, "upholds Marxist, Leninist, satanic principles drawn from foreign law."

Ominously, Vieira continued by saying his "bottom line" for dealing with the Supreme Court comes from Joseph Stalin. "He had a slogan, and it worked very well for him, whenever he ran into difficulty: 'no man, no problem,' " Vieira said.

The full Stalin quote, for those who don't recognize it, is "Death solves all problems: no man, no problem." Presumably, Vieira had in mind something less extreme than Stalin did and was not actually advocating violence. But then, these are scary times for the judiciary. An anti-judge furor may help confirm President Bush's judicial nominees, but it also has the potential to turn ugly."

Important question, did Vieira attempt to qualify his Stalin quotation being mindfull of the likes of Rudolph who inhabit the right wing fringe?

Answer, no!

Milbank to his credit makes the charitable observation that Vieira probably didn't mean what he said, Vieira himself left the interpretaton to his audience, which included C-Span.

I think you are having a Powerline moment trying to hang this on Milbank.

I don't know much about this organization, but if I heard that statement, I'd be a little freaked out too.  I'm sure nobody from the religious right walked up to him and said it would be a good idea to bomb people, but with enough rhetoric and enough innuendo, someone like Rudolph could easily get that idea from a speech like this.  

needing bodyguards was contained in the first paragraph of his story; it was thus meant as an introductory note to the entire piece.  He came very close to explicitly inimating that Justice Kennedy should take the happenings at this conference as a direct threat to his safety and hire bodyguards.

Is it his opinion that the people at the conference were violent freaks?  Possibly.  If so, the sentiment belongs in an Op/Ed.

Eric Rudolph should be vallified for violence.  These other folks, who have perpetrated no violence, should not be so accused, much less villified.

Vieira's comment quoting Stalin?

What would be your take on a Democratic operative using the same quote in commentary on say Tom Delay?

allegedly threatened the activist Judge George Greer may have referred to themselves as religious conservatives, Milibank saw fit to advise Justice Kennedy to hire bodyguards because some folks called for his impeachment at a conference?

That is non sequitur, Gromit, and you should know it.  Because some religous conservatives are violent does not mean that all religious conservatives violent.  There are violent freaks on the left, as well, but it would be foolish to brand all leftists  as violent freaks.

Dana Milibank could have written: "After the threats and violence of the past election and indeed the past several years, one would be wise not to drive around with a Bush/Cheney bumpersticker and no armed escort."

Generalizations serve no valid purpose, and they should be edited out of stories purporting to be "hard news."

Avoiding the specific object of Milbanks article and dancing around the issue of Vieira quoting Stalin.  Take out the quote and Milbanks article loses its punch and probably wouldn't have been written in the same vain.  But that is what Vieir said and no amount of dancing around is going to change the fact.

I find the idea that social conservatives ought to be extraordinarily circumspect, mindful of needing to avoid exciting the "homicidal Right-wing fringe", somewhat offensive.

I personally believe, if indeed it does, that this applies just as strongly to the Left.

and not what people are writing.

That is non sequitur, Gromit, and you should know it.  Because some religous conservatives are violent does not mean that all religious conservatives violent.  There are violent freaks on the left, as well, but it would be foolish to brand all leftists  as violent freaks.

And I said as much in my comment.  So, what are you blathering about?

that by using the "perhaps a bodyguard" line is his opening paragraph,the introduction, he is having the entire story seen through that lens.

If he would have used "perhaps a bodyguard" to describe Vieira alone, my criticism would be tenuous at best.

As it stands, Milibank has suggested that Justice Kennedy needs a bodyguard because those who spoke and attended this conference want to cause him physical harm.

I repeat, it's nothing about which to joke.  Show me Viera's speech -- the quote in context -- and I'll criticize him if it is due.

It's called a teaser in journalistic circles, meant to draw the reader into reading the whole piece.  And if Vieira hadn't said it Milbank ouldn't have used it now could he.

Since the Left doesn't have a "homicidal fringe" I take it you mean that the Left and journalists in particularly should avoid exciting the "homicidal Right-wing fringe" by writing articles on what social conservatives say to invigorate the 'troops' at their conflabs.

Truly mindboggling insanity.

You didn't even read his post. It had nothing to do with what journalists write or don't write. It had to do with the man's right to speak what was on his mind without concern for what the mentally unbalanced in the audience might do.

If you and your buddy are talking, and one of you quotes from Hamlet, in jest, about the "first thing let's do, we'll kill all the lawyers" line, and some nutcase who hears you proceeds to do just that, should you be held accountable? That's the point he was trying to make.

Oh, and by the way:

the Left doesn't have a "homicidal fringe"

Yes, they do. They're called "communists." (Global Communism - 100 million massacred... I mean, served!!)

MachoNachos

His $0.02 was a direct comment on Kilmers expose' of what Milbank (a journalist) accurately recorded Vieira saying, werein Kilmer attempts to pin blame on Milbank for focusing on what Vieira said rather than censure Vieira for saying it.

You are unable to distinguish between Left and communist yet I'm sure you would squalk at anyone conflating the Right with fascists, what remarkably blinkered insight you have.

I fully realise that in this predominantly christian country christian conservatives are a persecuted minority, I just don't think the reason for this has anything to do with the fact that they claim to be christians or conservatives for that matter.

The last time I was threatened, they didn't come out and say "we are going to get you."  No, their exact words in the anonymous phone call were "We know where you live, and where your children go to school."

Subject to different interpretations? You bet.  Did I start carrying again, and walk my kids to school for a long while afterwards.  Damn straight.

This guy has 4 degrees, including a law degree, from Harvard.  He knew exactly what he was saying and he knew his audience was wider than those present in the room.  Some nutcase will take him literally, and when said nutcase goes off the deep end, Vieira will haul out a rhetoric defense: "Gee, I never intended anyone to do that."

Incitement is incitement, no matter how craftily done.

Show me Viera's speech -- the quote in context -- and I'll criticize him if it is due.

It was on C-Span so you know where to get it if you so desire, tho you are placing yourself out on a limb to claim Milbank quoted Vieira out of context and of course you are aware the larger context would be the recent attacks on judges and the related remarks of Delay and Cornyn.

in which Vieira made that comment, i.e. the text of his speech.  If he actually made a veiled death threat, that is not only wrong, it's very counterproductive.

But again, I cannot comment on a little quip Milibank extracted from the speech.

He, Vieira, quoted Stalin more than once, to make sure he got his point across.  Hardly leaving you much wiggle room is he?

To waste a single moment defending Edwin Viera's decision to quote Stalin's "no man, no problem" line.  I have no time for self-proclaimed "conservatives" postively quoting Communist dictators (much less Stalin of all people), and suggesting, however obliquely (or not so obliquely, in this case), that their methods should be applied to the Federal Judiciary.  

I'm willing to give Viera the benefit of the doubt, and presume that he meant to propose something other than the killing federal judges.  But let's not pretend that he (at the very least) didn't make a colossally stupid remark -- twice -- and that the remark was fully worthy of Dana Milbank's story.

(And you do realize that -- even though your post completely ignores Viera's remarks -- that they were nonetheless the primary the basis for Milbank's story?  I mean, your argument is a bit of a put on, no?)

Au contraire. The Left has had and does have a homicidal fringe; the Weathermen, SLA, ELF, ALF, Unabomber, etc? Remember them?

What irked me was the implicit assumption by Millbank and you that Right's fringe is in any way more prone to being homicidal than the Left's own radical fringe.

Consider the amount of hate and vitriol MoveOn, Michael Moore and other Leftist icons poured into the elections last year, i.e. "Bush launched the war against Saddam for fun and profit", "Bush wants to re-institute slavery", "Bush wants to destroy the environment", etc.

How would you have felt if someone had told Eli Pariser to tone it down because it might incite the Left-Wing fringe to violence, because, after all, they are SO susceptible to it?

See Viera's comments. There are definitely people on the conservative side who are irresponsibly sidling up to calls for violence. Blaming Dana Milbank for this seems disingenuous at best.

Just as the Democrats have to get over the idea that they are the majority party. We have to get over the idea that we are the oppressed victims of majority liberalism and the so-called main stream media. We've cowed the media for the most part, we have a vast radio network and a television network and we control 3 out of 4 branches of the federal government.

Let's make change happen. And let's start by getting past the view of ourselves as victims of the big bad liberal elite. That boogeyman is dead and waiting to be buried. We've won. Let's start thinking like winners.

Oh come on man. Lunatics and long dead political groups are not a 'homicidal fringe'.

The Unabomber was just insane, and the SLA doesn't get much press these days.

I have never heard of Viera before, but I can lead a sheltered life at times.

A little (very little) research pulls a title that makes me think he is one of the 'flouride doesn't just fight cavities and prevent tooth-decay, it rots our democracy' crowd.  Are people like this to be taken any more seriously than PETA?

homicidal.  But I don't think the Weathermen killed anybody (but people did get killed in a riot they started).  ELF and ALF try not to kill anyone though they are certainly terrorists (who should be jailed).  I'm not sure which SLA you are referring to there are several I see.  And the Unabomber is definitely not a leftist.

"One of the most widespread manifestations of the craziness of our world is leftism"

"Leftists tend to hate anything that has an image of being strong, good and successful. They hate America, they hate Western civilization, they hate white males, they hate rationality."

http://www.soci.niu.edu/~critcrim/uni/uni.txt

So it would be difficult to pin him on the left.  Whereas, Rudolph was pursuing the same goals as a number of right wing groups and politicians, the Anti-abortion movement.  Yes he went way farther than the vast majority of the movement would ever condone, but he is a product of the Anti-abortion movement.

Similarly there have been homicidal threats against judges and civillians recently in the Schiavo circus.  These threats have come from the right.

If leftists were making such threats and had killed people in recent years, I would be happy to see the mirror image of this article written about the leftist extremists, wouldn't you?

Gromit, look, you seemed to ask if Milibank meant that ALL conservatives were violent or that SOME conservatives were violent.  That's a loaded question, and it is certainly not valid.

Are all pop stars pedophiles or just some?

Conservatism is not more a violent ideology than singing tunes is an indication of an untoward interest in children.

But we're digressing, we are.  My plaint, you see, was with Milibank insisting that the people who attended this conference were violent.

start passing special legislation on the floor of Congress to further PETA's agenda, and accuses judges who do not so of being "judicial terrorists trying to club baby seals to death"...

we still wouldn't control any branch of the elected federal government, and PETA still wouldn't have the history of killing people that the extreme right does. But because I'm a nice gal, I will overlook these things, and if Nancy Pelosi or Harry Reid or Dick Durbin starts doing that, I will take PETA as seriously as I do these extreme right-ists.

About how the founding saint of the environmental movement has more blood at her feet than just about every dictator in history.

talk about a can of worms (or mosquitos).

Just Wiki DDT and click on the discussion link at the top.  There is a lot of nonsense about DDT out there.  That Wiki article is SOOO slanted.  

Who "banned" it and for what purposes (i.e. agriculture vs. malaria control)

Whether malaria control hasn't actually continued, essentially unabated.

Whether malaria eradication efforts in Africa, where 90% of the cases of Malaria occur, were even going on in the 1960's.

Whether mosquitos and malaria aren't more resistant to the stuff now.

on and on and on and on.

I really don't want to talk about it.  I just point to the lengthy discussion on Wiki

Regardless however, this is not violence.  At all. No matter how many people you claim died from it.  Not one bit.  And frankly, shame on you for implying that it was.  (don't ban me! (wince))

Where does he even say anything to the effect of "conservatives are violent"?

I'm not going to argue that it is a well-written piece.  In my opinion it is not.  But, strangely, your criticisms don't appear to be confined to the actual content of the piece.

I think Mr. Viera's comments were far beyond reasonable.  They were excessive and can definitely be said to "incite" violence.  That being said, don't blind yourself into thinking only the far right has any blood on their hands.  International Communism has more deaths laid at its feet than any other ideology in world history (100 million+).  And leftist groups in America can rise to violence on their own: SLA, ELF, and the ALF come to mind.  But even "smaller" incident such as Al Sharpton's calls for racial violence are valid examples.  Both conservatism and liberalism need to be aware of their fringe elements which begins by acknowledging their existence.

If I'm not mistaken, it's been 30 years since the heyday of the SLA.

When the Earth Liberation Front and the Animal Liberation Front participate in two-day conferences in Washington in conjuction with two members of the House, staff members for two Senators, and members of whatever the Democratic/liberal version is of the American Conservative Union and the Family Research Council, we can talk about equivalence.

With reference to a sitting member of the Supreme Court of the United States of America, Viera quoted Stalin, twice, to the effect that the solution to politically problematic people is to kill them.  Why waste a single breath defending it?

Cheers -

Seattleslough has addressed the factual weakness of what I take to be your point.  I'll simply add that it's one of the cheesier and least relevant attempts at redirection that I've seen in a while.

Cheers -

If leftists were making such threats and had killed people in recent years, I would be happy to see the mirror image of this article written about the leftist extremists, wouldn't you?

Ah, Andrew Mickel, perhaps? Bought lock, stock, and barrel into far leftist rhetoric about government becoming an arm of corporations, corporations being above the law, etc. Just took it considerably further than most. The article doesn't seem to suggest that CEOs should start hiring bodyguards, though. (And it's odd, too, that the article (second page) blames applause for cop-killing on the far right, militias, McVeigh, etc. The fringe left's admiration for Susan Rosenberg and Mumia Abu-Jamal clearly has nothing to do with it.)

I spent no breathe defending Mr. Viera.  I just pointed out to a commenter that the far left has a violent history as well.  I'm not educated enough to draw equivalence or declare one side worse.  I merely think acknowledge extremists on both sides from Sharpton to Viera is important.

to read and comment on this blog, so presumably you are able to read newspapers and watch the TV news.  From this I would suggest your reluctance to 'draw equivalence' or 'declare one side worse' does not speak to insufficient education but to something else.

guy squarely in the schizophrenic party.  I am happy to see the article and, as disturbing as it is, I am not concerned about other members of this guys "movement" killing anyone else.

The problem is y'all on the Left seem to think the average pro-lifer is a ticking time-bomb. Considering the huge numbers of people who are pro-life in this nation, and the relatively extremely miniscule number of attacks on abortionists, that's not a valid concern.

Let's remember the dozens of Bush/Republican campaign headquarters that had gunshots fired into them during last year's campaign. Hardly made page 19. If one gunshot had gone into an abortion clinic, the New York Times would have called for the national guard to close all churches down.

...I don't think it's credible to say that this guy is just a mentally ill/isolated idiot, with the implied contradistinction that Eric Rudolph is one of the anti-abortion movement's shock troops or whatever. As best I can tell, Rudolph's actions follow from these premises, more or less: abortion is equivalent to murder, there is no hope for a political abolition of abortion, and halting abortion is more important than the rule of law.

Mickel's actions seem to me to follow from a similar uncritical acceptance of certain premises. To wit: the government is essentially controlled by large corporations, the voting system and the news media have been subverted by the same forces, and the aforesaid corporations and the government are committing any number of crimes, including murder. None of this is precisely new: these propositions have been asserted, to varying degrees of absoluteness, by people all over the fringe and somewhat-less-fringe left. Mickel seems to have taken all of them absolutely seriously. If he really and truly believes that corporate personhood or whatever somehow makes corporations immune from conviction, I don't see how that makes him crazy, any more than the tax evader who thinks he's found the perfect legal loophole that repeals the 16th Amendment or whatever. Both are clearly wrong, and foolishly uncritical, but not crazy.

Bottom line: if you take in everything said by the extremists of "your side" seriously and as moral precepts, you're likely to wind up in a state of mind where a lot of people on the other side "need  killing". I'm not convinced that the Left enjoys any special immunity from this.

I am not ON the left.

Second, that's not a valid characterization of anything I said or believe.  I have never said that "the average pro-lifer is a ticking time bomb."  If you disagree with me about issues that's fine, but don't try to paint me as the strawman-wacko-liberal that Sean Hannity beats up every day.  For one reason, I am not even close, for another reason I don't think I've ever met such a person.

"Considering the huge numbers of people who are pro-life in this nation, and the relatively extremely miniscule number of attacks on abortionists,"

I believe that is why these attackers have been referred to as the "homicidal Right-wing fringe" of the anti-abortion movement.

I'm not aware that it was "dozens" of headquarters, but in any case if someone were giving a speech like this one to a group opposing the reelection of Bush and included the quote from Stalin "No man, no problem"  I would have a problem with that group and that speech and not with a writer who suggests that maybe some Bush campaigners should get additional security.

It seems like a reasonable position to me.  But you know, it's very difficult for those of us in the middle to see a lot of the things you people can see from your vantage points on the far left and the far right.

I didn't call this guy an idiot, he seems intelligent, homicidal, and mentally ill.  Eric Rudolph on the other hand seems intelligent, homicidal, and rational.  I didn't say Rudolph was the shock troops of anything, but he is associated with radical, violent, anti-abortion groups like the Christian Identity movement.  I don't consider such people to be part of the mainstream anti-abortion movement anymore than I consider them to be part of mainstream Christianity.  

Yes, I agree with you about what both of their apparent motivations are.  There is one critical difference though.  Rudolph plead out to avoid the death penalty for his crime.  Mickel is representing himself.  With all due respect to the courts, anyone who tries to represent himself in any case, let alone a murder trial, is crazy period.